Pitney Bowes CEO bullish on MapInfo

There were 160 people at Wolferts Roost Country Club this morning to hear Murray Martin, chief executive of Pitney Bowes, talk about the $6.1 billion company and its acquisition of MapInfo Corp. last year.

Martin was extremely bullish about MapInfo, now the headquarters for Pitney Bowes’ global software division, and the Capital Region as a whole.

“MapInfo is growing, and it’s going to continue to grow,” he told a Times Union reporter after the talk. “There’s a lot of opportunity. There’s global opportunity.”

Based in North Greenbush, MapInfo was acquired for $408 million. The company is best known for its mapping software and the data packages that it sells.

After Pitney Bowes acquired the company, it consolidated its other local operations into MapInfo’s headquarters building at Rensselaer Technology Park in North Greenbush. Pitney Bowes combined MapInfo with another company and renamed it Pitney Bowes Software. About 500 people work locally.

The breakfast meeting was hosted by the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Martin, a Canadian by birth, also joked about the cold March temperatures.

“It reminds me of home,” he said. “This is sort of like summer.”

Martin’s main message was the importance of companies being able to manage different generations of workers that have different expectations for workplace flexibility, such as telecommuting or flexible hours.

But he also said businesses must create balance and not overwork employees.

“We are not free from contact,” he said. “We get our emails every day. There is no escape from work.”

Martin admitted that even he, a CEO, tries not to work on weekends or vacations.

“I personally don’t hide the fact that my family is important to me,” he said. “I believe the weekends our mine. I rarely work on vacations.”